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Perl 6 Optimism

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Re: Perl 6 Optimism

#91

Post by dkarl »

alien_at_work wrote: post #35
joosters wrote: post #2

I don’t understand why Perl 5 and 6 are still tied together as if they are the same language. There’s no compatibility between the two. You can’t write a library that works in both versions, so you lose CPAN and the thousands of packages that make Perl so powerful. I don’t think there’s even any reliable way to translate Perl 5 source code. This is a vastly larger change than python 2->3, and people are still using p…

>I don’t understand why Perl 5 and 6 are still tied together as if they are the same language. A lot of people seem to have forgotten, or maybe they weren't around for it, but when Larry anounced Perl 6 it wasn't for a totally different language. It was the next version of Perl . Just as Perl 5 was to Perl 4, and 4 was to 3 and so on. This idea that it's a completely different language and has no relation with 5 is s…

Almost. Perl 6 was always meant to be a step beyond Perl 5 rather than just an extension or evolution, but initially, Perl 5 was supposed to be a supported syntax. It would be one of many supported by the runtime, and the primary syntax people meant when they said "Perl 6" was going to be a clean break from the past — which excited many people such as myself who despised Perl 5 while envying its terseness — but the underlying engine was supposed to support Perl 5 with seamless interop from Perl 6.

When they gave that up, they needed to work out a completely new plan for maintaining interest and driving adoption, but instead of reassessing they seem to have decided "who cares, it's gonna be so awesome that it won't matter." It might work, but I'm not holding my breath.

Re: Perl 6 Optimism

#93

Post by petre »

kstrauser wrote: post #86

Perl Pessimism: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=perl I have happy memories of Perl, and it started me on the path that led to a nice career of Python awesomeness. Thanks, Perl! That said, I can't imagine a plausible scenario where I'd ever consider using it again. I almost certainly wouldn't use it professionally because it's not exactly going to light up a resume. Yes, there are still Perl shops.…

We are one of those Perl shops. The reasons why we're still using it are: old codebase started in 2004, >95% rewritten, the language is stable, fast enough and it scaled well for our needs after we rewrote the web services using Mojolicious. I'd also pick Perl any day over PHP or Python.

We also write a fair amount of Javascript on the frontend but moving the backend to Node.js doesn't add any benefits. It just makes things harder, having to track constantly moving targets, using many different tools to accomplish the same jobs, having to fork stuff just to get it to work properly.

Re: Perl 6 Optimism

#94

Post by mattgreenrocks »

kstrauser wrote: post #86

Perl Pessimism: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=perl I have happy memories of Perl, and it started me on the path that led to a nice career of Python awesomeness. Thanks, Perl! That said, I can't imagine a plausible scenario where I'd ever consider using it again. I almost certainly wouldn't use it professionally because it's not exactly going to light up a resume. Yes, there are still Perl shops.…

I'd advise you to remain curious beyond what's good for your resume, especially if you want to stay sharp and ahead of the curve. Perl 6 has some neat features, particularly around grammars and parsing, that make those tools easier to use for day-to-day problems.

Re: Perl 6 Optimism

#95

Post by jandrese »

simias wrote: post #8
joosters wrote: post #2

I don’t understand why Perl 5 and 6 are still tied together as if they are the same language. There’s no compatibility between the two. You can’t write a library that works in both versions, so you lose CPAN and the thousands of packages that make Perl so powerful. I don’t think there’s even any reliable way to translate Perl 5 source code. This is a vastly larger change than python 2->3, and people are still using p…

Pretty much. I used to use Perl 5 a lot but I never considered using Perl 6 and eventually moved on from the Perl ecosystem altogether. The huge advantage of Perl ~10 years ago was the massive amount of CPAN packages but in the meantime python & friends mostly caught up in my experience. Meanwhile the shiny new revolutionary Perl 6 took forever to release and when it finally did nobody cared anymore. Quoting Wikipedi…

Perl 6 seems to have one of the worst cases of the second system effect in modern history. It didn't help that Larry Wall got sick halfway through the development either.

As a Perl 5 developer, I look at it and go "If I have to learn a new language I might as well make it a popular one like Python 3 or Rust."

Re: Perl 6 Optimism

#96

Post by gaius »

cygx wrote: post #90
gaius wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are real companies doing real work in newer languages like Swift and Go too. Perl 6 is a toy in comparison. Zoffix Znet I use it at $work for throw-away one-liners Awesome

There are real companies doing real work in newer languages like Swift and Go too Apples and oranges, given that Swift and Go were started with the deep pockets of Apple and Google behind them. Look at Ruby for a more fair comparison: It took 10 years to take off, stayed "hot" for ~3 years and has been in slow decline ever since.

It took 10 years to take off

It’s been 18 years since Perl 6 was announced...

Re: Perl 6 Optimism

#97

Post by jandrese »

skywhopper wrote: post #31
simias wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. I used to use Perl 5 a lot but I never considered using Perl 6 and eventually moved on from the Perl ecosystem altogether. The huge advantage of Perl ~10 years ago was the massive amount of CPAN packages but in the meantime python & friends mostly caught up in my experience. Meanwhile the shiny new revolutionary Perl 6 took forever to release and when it finally did nobody cared anymore. Quoting Wikipedi…

Yeah... sometime around 2007 or so they finally admitted as much and started updating Perl 5 more regularly. But it's been a ridiculous journey. No project that starts out to rewrite a long-established and entrenched piece of software from the ground up ever ends up being a smooth transition. It's best to admit as soon as it's clear what's happening that you are doing something entirely new, and let the old project l…

The progress on Perl 5 has been remarkable too. Complex data structures no longer require you to wave a dead chicken and spelunk through StackExchange for hours. Unicode just works most of the time. Useful new features appear in the language, even though you would rightfully expect it to be in maintenance mode.

Re: Perl 6 Optimism

#98

Post by mixmastamyk »

newen wrote: post #74
toyg wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The visual marker of scope is there and it's massive: indentation. You can write bad code in every syntax, but when a language carries jokes about being "write-only" and the other has a reputation for being anal about indentation (the single most helpful scope-marker in any syntax), I don't think you can argue about objectivity when discussing readability. This said, I'd like to see scientific comparisons, which are…

Bro, literally every language does indentation. Python just does indentation badly by making it syntactically significant. Also. If you're going to come back to me with the argument that it forces people to use indentation, I've got some news for you. Literally everyone uses indentation. And if you somehow come across code written by the rare soul that doesn't use indentation, all I've to do is select the entire code…

> everyone uses indentation.

Yes, if you don’t you’re incompetent. If you do, the markers are then redundant.

Mixed indentation hasn’t been allowed in years.

Any good editor will show mixed indentation, guides, and indent properly with the tab key, get one.

Sounds like your knowledge of Python is about a decade behind. Not to mention those were nonissues from my experience even back in the day.

Re: Perl 6 Optimism

#99

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway7645 wrote: post #89
pletnes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard many times that perl is «write only». Unicode operators takes it to the next level.

APL has used a huge set of non ASCII characters for more than 30 years in production by large companies.

[deleted]

Re: Perl 6 Optimism

#100

Post by loggedinmyphone »

jandrese wrote: post #97
skywhopper wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... sometime around 2007 or so they finally admitted as much and started updating Perl 5 more regularly. But it's been a ridiculous journey. No project that starts out to rewrite a long-established and entrenched piece of software from the ground up ever ends up being a smooth transition. It's best to admit as soon as it's clear what's happening that you are doing something entirely new, and let the old project l…

The progress on Perl 5 has been remarkable too. Complex data structures no longer require you to wave a dead chicken and spelunk through StackExchange for hours. Unicode just works most of the time. Useful new features appear in the language, even though you would rightfully expect it to be in maintenance mode.

> Complex data structures no longer require you to wave a dead chicken

Do you have a reference on changes to data structure syntax in 5.x? Probably my biggest frustration was trying to use anything beyond a scalar list - it always ended up a mess of hashrefs.

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